Welcome To The Hermit's Desk

I've been slowly going through those links, Cinemababe. Thank you for that. Just you putting together the information for me to go through helps SO MUCH. Silly, isn't it, how a simple Google search can be so frightening? You've always been so great at offering me links when I've been too nervous to find them on my own. Thank you. I found a video in one of the links describing some things about dialysis. I haven't yet the courage to watch it, but I definitely wouldn't have found it on my own without your help.

And hooolly shit, Disgruntled Girl, I had no idea that the dialysis industry was in such trouble. Now I know to ask about whatever dialysis center I wind up at. I don't know if I'll have any options to change centers but just knowing the dangers is useful. Also jesus, they better fucking disinfect that shit or I will pitch a high holy hell fit.

And Franklanguage, your suggestions don't bother me at all. The largest problem with a vegan diet right now is money. A quart of almond or coconut milk is about 4 dollars. An entire gallon of milk is $2 dollars. Food money is tight enough where that 2 dollars saved is vastly important. As it is, I have to shop at a discount grocery store, because the 2.00 I spend on milk there (as opposed to 3.69 at a regular grocery store) means I get one more day's worth of food. Even with foodstamps, the food budget - that covers both Jesse and myself - works out to about 250 a month. That covers a semi-decent renal diet for about 2 1/2 weeks. After that, we make do with food pantries and whatever Pat is able to give me out of his own refrigerator.

Do you have any recommended websites about vegan on the cheap? I sincerely doubt I'd be able to go vegan full time, but incorporating vegan aspects into the diet wouldn't be so bad. With luck, if disability goes through, I'll soon have more money to eat better.

(Yeah, if. Everyone from my GP to my nephro states I should qualify, but I hear so many horror stories of people never getting it, even if they got thrown into a woodchipper or something. Not to mention the current political climate. I worry. I worry a lot.) The biggest worry is losing my insurance. These are not cheap treatments I'm on. If I have employer-based healthcare, I will likely be responsible for copays, percentages of hospital stays, tests, etc.

Even with a full-time job, I will not be able to cover the roughly 100,000 a year my treatment generally runs, That's a lowball estimate, if I include two hospital stays a year.. And I'd have to work a full time job to pay the bills, which would disqualify me for any kind of Medicaid. (That first year and a half....god, I don't even want to know what I racked up in actual bills.) If I have to pay even a fifth of that, that's still twenty thousand dollars a year. There is no way in hell I'd be able to pay that and support myself.